


A Knight Templar's Tale

by orphan_account



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-02
Updated: 2013-09-02
Packaged: 2017-12-25 09:27:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/951443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cullen tells his life story. This was part of a larger work that I probably won't finish, but I wanted to keep this part up. The basic premise was that a bunch of random Dragon Age characters were forced together on a pilgrimage and decided to tell their stories, ala the Canterbury Tales. This is Cullen's story. Also I obv messed up the timeline a little bit wrt to the Orlesian War and how old Cullen would be etc etc. Also see end notes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Knight Templar's Tale

I am Knight-Captain Cullen.  Like many Templars, I will tell you that the Chantry is my mother, the Templars my father, but that is not the case. I was born on a tree farm in Telnon, a small village not far from Gwaren.  Our land was sea-kissed, and my father used to say that Amaranthia’s touch was the source of our large family, as well as fertile land.  I was the youngest of eight boys and my earliest memories are a tumble of wrestling and laughter. Maker help me, I have trouble recalling all their names, but I can see their faces clear as day, covered in mud and freckles and toothy grins. 

In those days Gwaren still bore the scars of the Orlesians but it recovered faster than others. Before Loghain, it had been in Maric’s hands for so long that we felt a certain solidarity. A pride, I think, that our little backwater area had played such an important role in the war. I have heard that in Denerim, suspicions and resentments still linger to this day, but Telnon was a place of unquestioning loyalty.  Growing up, things seemed so clear.  The things that every parent tells their children--work hard, praise the Maker, listen to the clerics and the teryn—well, we internalized them, because we could see with our own eyes that in Telnon, everyone did that. And everyone was taken care of. I will be forever grateful for that. I have seen men who did not grow up with that kind of security, and uncertainty dogs their every step. I have taken the wrong path a hundred times in my life, but I have never lost faith that the Maker would steer me right.

Even as a child, I struggled with what was the right path. An eighth son does not have a lot of immediately obvious futures. My eldest brothers would take over the business. There was no negotiation there, something for which I was deeply resentful. I loved working on the farm. There is such a wonderful clarity in the stroke of an axe splitting wood.

 Handel, the fifth son, and one I was closest to, initiated into the clergy in Gwaren. I considered following him for a time, but Handel himself talked me out of it.  He said, in his gentle way, that I lacked a certain subtlety. A comment which I barely considered then, but have agonized over since. Still, I found that I would rather spend my days at the Chantry than at sparring practice. While I loved my sword, I had no desire to be a soldier like my middle brothers. With no war to fight, they were off selling their services to foreigners.  Mercenaries. The entire concept left, and if I may be honest, still does leave, a dirty taste in my mouth.  We had no Circle in Telnon, and so it was only by chance that at age twelve, while visiting Handel, I met a Templar captain. It took two weeks to get his attention and months of apprenticeship to get his respect, but I left for the monastery that year.

But….I find myself rambling. The story I want to tell…the story I must tell, is not of my recruitment. I have been avoiding cutting to the heart of it. I have been forgiven by the Grand Cleric, by the Knight-Commander of Ferelden and…I believe, at least, by the one I truly wronged, but still. It is hard to speak of. On bended knee, hundreds of miles away from my home, I turned my soul and heart over to the Templars and yet, the truth remains. I have broken every vow I made that day.

It was because of a woman, of course.

In the beginning, I tried to keep a certain distance from the mages who hadn’t yet completed their Harrowing. It was a whole lot easier to kill someone without hesitation if they were a stranger, but also…the young mages, they were often resentful, bratty. They acted like I was only their jailer, not their protector. Admittedly, I thought the Circle’s procedures were strict, but it was not my fault. After they got a glimpse of the demon within, they would often soften to me, and I to them. There were a few that became…friends.

Irina was different. It wasn’t that she was beautiful. She became beautiful to me, of course, but she did not possess the kind of beauty that drew men to her. She was underweight and short, with a flat chest, stubby legs, and a long torso. From behind, you could easily mistake her for a child or elf. Her face was angular and somewhat severe, her eyes a dark brown, and her hair an untamed mop of black curls. When I first saw her, my eyes went right past, but then she spoke.

“Ser Knight. Could you tell me where Uldred is? He told me he would stop by my quarters, but he never came.”

I was first struck by the politeness of her request, but then my head whipped back and jaw dropped when I registered her accent. The easy lilt, the way she dropped her r at the end of “quarter”, the antiquated usage of the honorrific “Ser Knight”; they were all habits I had unlearned over the years.  Maker’s breath, she was Gwaven.

 “Ser?” she asked again, and I realized I had been staring at her with my mouth open.

“I’m sorry.” I apologized. I am sure I blushed. “It’s just…your accent. I’m from Telnon.”

“Oh.” she laughed a pretty, dainty laugh, like church bells from a distance. “I know that area. I grew up in Gwaven proper, although from time to time my father would have business there. It was very pretty. You don’t have the accent though?”

“I’ve lost it.” I said it as though it was an object I had carelessly misplaced, not one that I had ripped out and buried.  When I left Telnon, I had completely left it behind and embraced the more cosmopolitan attitude of my comrades-at-arms.  The Templars, while encouraging us to focus only on the present, never actually forbade me from returning home, but I took it as an opportunity to leave the past in the past. Why? I cannot say. I did not leave with bitterness. I suppose I have always had an all-or-nothing mentality. A lack of subtlety, Handel said. “But.” I told her. “It is good to hear.”

“Well, you may talk to me anytime you like. I am Irina.”

“Cullen.” I replied.

She repeated my name and I swear it felt like coming home. If I had locked off my memories of home, her voice was the key that opened the door. It was the smell of wet wood, salt water, and fresh loaves in the kiln. It was the sound of the ocean at high tide. It was the feeling of pine needles under bare calloused feet. It was the blinking brilliance of the sun setting through lines of darkened trees. It was…trouble, but I was far too gone to care.  

I sought her out often after that. I’d make excuses. I wanted to know more about healing magic and Wynne was too busy. I’d lost a piece of equipment and wondered she’d found it. I’d heard a rumor a mage had lost a book, was it her? And then, when my flimsy cover was sated, we would sit on the bench outside her room and talk of home. Eventually I ran out of reasons, but I still came. 

She was quiet in groups, I’d observed, but when we were alone, she talked easily and often. When we spoke of Gwaren, she liked to talk most of the city and the woods and the food, not the people. Too much talk of family would make both of us melancholy. Irina was quick to pull us out of any dark turns with a quick joke. She had a sharp wit, but she used it sparingly, as if it frightened her.

We moved past Gwaren and began learning of each other. Her talents lay in primal magic, but her father had been an architect and she was interested in applying magic to construction work.  She heard that Tevinter fortresses were built by slaves, and she thought she could use telekinesis to reduce the risk of their injury. These conversations were theoretical, of course. We knew she would never be allowed to leave Fereldan. If she was sad about that, she never showed it.

 Sometimes our knees would touch and I’d jerk back, ears on fire and stomach churning. I’ve no idea if she even noticed my inner turmoil. I was too afraid to look at her. I would just stare straight ahead, jabbering on, trying to erase the smiles that threatened to cross my treacherous face whenever I was in her company.

I wasn’t a fool. Well, I was, but I at least knew that what I was feeling for her was wrong.  Since I had no intention of acting on them, I convinced myself it wasn’t a problem. You have to understand, those were different times.  Many Templars were friendly with mages. Greagoir encouraged this, to an extent. He didn’t want us to hesitate to kill them, but he also said it was better if we had a more personal stake in protecting them. Consequently, there was some…fraternization. Not relationships, not..love, mind you. I refused to engage in any of these encounters. I was always a rule follower, even if the rules were overlooked.

 It wasn’t until much later that I realized that the real reason Greagoir allowed these affairs to continue was because it kept mages from pairing off together. Two mages together was an insurrection. A mage and a Templar could be means of control. There was so much I missed then. I was content to stay in the dark.

The day it all began to change was the day of Elbeth’s Harrowing. I despised Elbeth. She was a close friend of Irina’s, although I could not understand what Irina saw in her. Elbeth was as loud and brassy as the shock of red hair on her head. When I saw them together, Elbeth would be the only one talking. Often Elbeth would mock Irina’s birthplace or magical talent, calling her a half bit potato fed kitchen witch or accusing her of jealousy, but Irina only responded with mild smiles. I thought Elbeth took advantage of her kindness. I tried to ask Irina about it once, but she stiffened and would only say that I couldn’t understand. 

 Elbeth was a powerful mage and she knew it. Once, I caught her past curfew, lounging in the corridor. Instead of running away, she sauntered over and put her arm around my shoulder, “Hey farm boy. Let’s see if we can make this go away,” and then leaned in so that her lips brushed my earlobes and her hot breath warmed my throat.

I shoved her off abruptly. “Not interested, mage.”

“Hrm.” She studied me in a very calculating way, and then smiled, as if I was puzzle she had finally put together. “Not in this mage, at least.”

I sputtered out something incoherent, and she laughed. “Oh boy. Irina is right about you. You’re more of a trouble-maker than I gave you credit for.”

I tried very hard to ignore what she said, especially the part about Irina- although a part of me was screaming to ask her for more- and reached for authority like a security blanket. “You’re the one who is in trouble right now, Elbeth. After hours and attempting to seduce a Templar will not go over well with the Knight-Commander.

 “No. It wouldn’t. ” She said cheerfully. “And yet. I’m not worried. You’re not going to tell on me.”

 She left after that, her hips moving in their characteristic swagger, leaving me completely disarmed.  I was furious at her presumptions and manipulation, but also angry because she was right. I didn’t turn her in.

I was the Templar assigned to deliver the blow at Elbeth’s Harrowing, should she fail. Her Harrowing was as dramatic as the woman herself. It was storming outside while we waited. She was in the Fade a long time, and the atmosphere in the Temple was tense.  The mages in the room had heavy faces. They did not expect her to return in any human condition.  Every loud clash of thunder made Irving jump for his staff.

The other Templars were anxious as well. She had been gone lone enough, argued my friend Daven, that there was no point in waiting any longer. I shook my head and told him we would give her time. I don’t remember the excuses I made anymore. Please don’t doubt me. If she had shown even a hint of possession, I would not have hesitated.  Without evidence…I just couldn’t bear to tell Irina I had cut down her friend without seeing the abomination for myself. 

The storm passed, and not much later, Elbeth returned. I held my sword up, holding my breath. She opened her eyes calmly as if waking from a pleasant dream and winked at me. I was flooded with relief, although it did not take long before I settled into a more familiar annoyance. Elbeth was all smug smiles, not a thought or comment about how long it had taken her. After a thorough examination, she was declared an official Mage of the Circle.

After they cleared her, I went to my room. I needed time alone to pray. I was lucky that day. What if I hadn’t been? What if Elbeth had been possessed and my dalliance allowed the demon into this realm? Good men could have died.  And the one worry that I was avoiding. Was my attraction to Irina prohibiting me from doing my duty?

And as if my thoughts summoned here, she came to me.

“May I come in?” I looked up. She was in my doorway. Her face was white, her cheeks splotchy.

“Of course.” I said, and she sat down on the bed next to me. I was acutely aware of her closeness. All my doubts about Irina vanished. She made things seem perfectly clear and murky at the same time. I resisted the urge to cup her face in my hands.  “You’ve been crying?”

“When I thought Elbeth was dead…” She twirled the hem of her robes in her hands. “They say you were to kill Elbeth. That you refused and waited longer than the other Templars wished.”

I could only nod as I watched her small fingers.

 “She is my best friend.” Irina said quietly. She took one hand away from the strand of cloth and squeezed my knee gently.  “I..will never be able to convey what that means to me.” She took her hand away and back to the frayed end in her hand, twisting the string around her finger.  “Not that you did it for me, of course.”

“Of course not.” I said quickly, my heart still racing from her touch. She stiffened and I realized too late that I should have answered honestly.

Irina stood up and sighed. “It’s funny. I thought you hated her. But I guess I am not a good judge of such things.”

“Such things?” I stared at her. Something had changed between us, but what, I was not sure.

“You know.” Irina shrugged and walked for the door.

“I’m sure I don’t..” I trailed off, then stared at her incredulously and laughed, her behavior suddenly making sense. “Wait, you think..that I…and..Elbeth? No, I…Maker, I don’t hate her, but. No.”

Irina stopped at the door and turned back, her face guarded. “You didn’t report her when you caught her out after hours. And then you waited past a time when no other Templar would to spare her life. You’re a sympathetic man, Cullen, but you follow the rules. Why would you break them twice for her?”

That was the point of no return, I think. There were a hundred things I could have told her to make her leave, but only one I thought would make her stay.

“Not for her. For you.”

She shifted her weight, still deciding in the doorframe. “But you just said..”

“Maker, Irina.” I breathed out. “I can’t think even think straight around you, let alone talk.”

Her face softened and she said my name, and I was rising up to go to her as she moved to me and we met in the middle of the room. I wrapped my arms around her and she pressed her forehead against my chest. I kissed the top of her head gently.  She looked up at me, her face a question I only had one answer for.  I held a finger up, reluctantly letting go of her to walk over and shut the door.

That evening was the best memory of this story, and one I won’t be sharing here.  It is for me alone to keep.

After that, I dreaded Irina’s Harrowing. It was strange that I hadn’t before, but I suppose that Tranquility or imprisonment seemed worse fates, until I considered the idea that I might have to be the one to kill her, if she failed.

We had six months together before it happened. Forbidden unions may sound exciting, but mostly it was stressful and harried, with moments of pure bliss.  We stole time where we could. Evenings in our rooms, spaced out to avoid attraction.  Walks around the tower spent in companionable silence that ended with chaste kisses in dark hallways. Our relationship was a secret and our lives separate. I never knew her friends, nor she mine. It was not enough, but it was everything.

 Some nights I couldn’t sleep, too terrified that the Knight-Commander would find out and remove me from my position. One of the many ways in which I revealed my selfishness, for if we were caught, she would surely be made Tranquil, but that was not the thought that kept me up at night.

When her Harrowing was scheduled, I took my name off the detail. Since my handling of Elbeth, the Templars had been more conservative in their approach, and I was confident they would wait for her, so there was no need for me to be there.

I hadn’t intended to tell her, but she found out anyway. The day of, she stormed into my room, angrier than I had ever seen her. “Cullen, I was just told that you won’t be there at my test?”

I was taken aback by her anger and all my prepared arguments fled my mind. “I… wasn’t assigned to you.”

“You’re lying.” She shook her head and paced. “You think I’ll fail.”

“No.” I tried to take her hand in mine. “I just..if something happened and.”

She jerked her hand away. “I won’t fail.”

“I know.”

Her face was a mask of coldness. “You’re a coward.”

I reached for her hand again.  “Irina, I love you.”

She took my hand, stared at it, and sank down next to me on the bed. “Irving always said that love is a weakness. I didn’t believe him until now.” Her voice was calmer now. Disappointed in me, but also..she forgave me, so I didn’t told her was that it wasn’t that I was afraid I couldn’t kill her. I was afraid that I could kill her.

Irina gave me a long, lingering kiss and then she left. I went to the chantry. I prayed for hours on end. I prayed that the Maker save her, that he save me. I appealed to Andraste. I began desperate, but by the end I felt a strong sense of peace and certainty. I left, confident that I would return to see Irina wearing Circle of Magi robes and a smile.

I didn’t.

I walked into the tower and saw Wynne. She was standing near the entrance, blood on her clothes and when I met her eyes and saw the sorrow there, I knew, and my heart turned to stone. She failed her test. She was gone.

It was only a few weeks after Irina’s death that the Circle fell. Uldred and his blood mages tore through my friends like they were stalks of wheat for the harvest. The things they did…they were unfathomable. Unspeakable, although I have tried many times to explain it. Elbeth was with them. It shouldn’t have surprised me how quickly she had joined Uldred, but it had nonetheless.

There is one thing I left out of my account to Greagoir. I said that my survival was dumb luck. The battle was chaotic. You could not see to aim at anyone, just shoot arrows in the direction of the enemy, as bursts of magic flew back. I was lucky in that none hit me. But at the end of the battle, when I ran down the hallway, jumping over the fallen, searching for a safe place to shield myself…I realized I had been followed.

I was covered in blood and shaking. I knew it was my responsibility to find safety and recover so that I could attempt to stop the mages, but my grief threatened to overtake me. Maker help me, it was not my grief over my friends or home, but Irina.  For the past few weeks, I had locked up my memories of Irina as I had once locked off my memories of home.

I collapsed and as I heard the footsteps of my pursuer, I knew I was going to die and suddenly it seemed too important to die denying Irina. I had nothing left to give her but my grief, so I dropped those crumbling defenses and let myself feel it all. My emotions fell out in paradoxes. Joy that I loved her mixed with anger that I couldn’t stop myself from doing so. Misery that she was gone, but relief that she wasn’t here to see what had happened to her friends. Rage for her weakness. And my shame, my guilt, covered everything.

When I didn’t feel an attack, I finally looked up. It was Elbeth.. She held her staff at my chest and was studying me with that calculating look again, only this time she wasn’t cocky.  She was hesitant.

It…is difficult, even for me, to understand my next action. From this distance, the Cullen in the tower that day seems like a stranger. I only remember that at that moment, there was something so poetic, so right about the idea of her being the one to finish me, so I pushed myself into her staff. “Kill me.”

Elbeth didn’t move. “You ended up being a bigger trouble-maker than either of us suspected.”

“Kill me.” I begged again. “You know you want to.”

 “I do.” She raised her staff and muttered something. A blast of energy shot towards me, but instead of felling me, it surrounded me. A shield. “And yet. This will keep you safe.” Elbeth lowered her staff and began to walk away, then stopped and before she headed up the stairs to join Uldred, said one final sentence. “You know, you’re not the only one who failed her.”  

I still wonder what it was that the demon tempted Irina with. At first, I knew it was my fault.  Love made me weak. It weakened her too. Elbeth’s words opened up new doors of possibility. I will never know what she meant.

I was trapped there for a week. I could hear the screams from upstairs. They begged.  The other Templars..and  the mages who resisted. Any charity I had for Elbeth was gone by then, along with a large part of my sanity. That week changed me…I have talked too much already, and I am not sure I could put it to words, but suffice it to say.  When the Wardens came, I told them to kill all the mages. I do not think that I would have altered my words even if Irina did live, so great was my hate.

When I came to Kirkwall, I was still clinging to that hate. I became the Templar I never thought I would: harsh, distant, and uncompromising. For a long time I blamed only magic. After all, it was magic that had destroyed Irina, corrupted Elbeth, and brought down my friends.

The longer I have stayed here, the more I have let my memories of Irina creep out. Slower now, safer. I will not let them overtake me, and yet I must examine them. It is unpleasant to see the truth. It has cast a bright light on my flaws. I realize how selfish I was in my relationship with Irina. I never thought about what it must have meant to her to be with someone who held her life in his hands. I had freedom, and she had none. I never asked. So much I never asked her!

And how selfishly I have used her memory!  I turned her death into a cautionary tale of magic, when she was so much more to me-- and outside of me.

My brother said I lacked subtlety. He was, and continues to be, right. Even now, after all I have seen, I want to believe that there are easy, clear answers.  But the Maker, in all his infinite wisdom, has seen time and time again to sneak some into me. He will not allow me to live with the righteous certainty I still crave. I am a Templar who loved a mage. I cut down maleficar, yet I was saved by one. I must live these contradictions.  I am done fighting them. The certainty I have now is that one day, as long as I keep the faith, it will make sense.

**Author's Note:**

> (If this seems like a fridging fic, well...I guess it basically is now. But in the larger story, she was always intended to be still alive)


End file.
